


Entrainment

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Champions (Comics), Ghost Rider (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk (Comics)
Genre: M/M, vague description of injury, vague pg 13 horny monologues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 08:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You remember what was going to happen, don’t you?” Arm hooked around Amadeus’ leg, Robbie carefully introduced it in the tub, breaking whatever spell was holding the surface of the water together and making it overflow. He held his arms out to support the rest as the man got up and shuffled into the water. This wasn't the first and probably wouldn’t be the last time their routine ticked this way, it came naturally, like gears rustling together. “Damn thing was going to explode, on purpose, and then you say-”“I can wrestle it off.” Amadeus provided in cue, monotone embarrassment present in his voice, aware of how badly that particular endeavor went.





	Entrainment

Amadeus would describe existence, in on itself, as a lazy, long process. It takes time, it takes energy; it uses up patience and burns calories. It exhausts. Pounds his bones and rattles the insides of his skull into nothing but power juice. It’s particularly arduous and taxing when it comes to the daily grind of avoiding a world-scale set of events that would result in the imminent destruction of anything he’s ever known and loved. ( also known as: his job description.)

 

Robbie, in another hand, very much preferred to say “shit happens.” and move onto taking care of the bones he’d bruised fighting giant shadow porcupines as quickly as possible. Because yeah, he guessed that kind of abominations HAD to be a thing at one point.

 

They stepped into the shared room at eleven o’clock, their long shadows casting the path their footsteps soon took to the bathroom. Truth to be told, Amadeus stumbled more than he walked, lightheaded and being hoisted up by his partner’s safe arms. His black and purple uniform was stained in dark green, dried hulk blood caked into the entirety of the left side of his head. That’s partially why his mind wandered, steering his morale and his wobbly feet with vaguely counterproductive conjecture. It was all about the fancy words, the flourishes that kept him engaged. He smiled to himself a lot, congratulating his own brain when he thought he came up with something particularly witty, which was _often_. Robbie had to tap his face with a severe insistence to pull even the slightest reaction out of the man, having lowered him on the closed toilet.

 

“I _said_. How do you want the water?”

 

His boyfriend stared at the tub then back at him then at the tub again, seemingly lost.

 

“... _Warm_?”

 

He was unsure if that was the right answer for a split second, which was soon resolved when Reyes’ face softened out by the edges, his arm reaching out to sluggishly turn on the water rush. Amadeus wasn’t stupid, he has never been, and he knew a response test when he saw one. There was no way he’d have missed it with how many times Robbie already asked in the car, then at the stairs, then at the door, and then again just as they were about to head in. He did it about twenty times, counting breaks.

 

“I’m not going to fall apart ‘yanno. ‘Am _sturdy_.” He tried to flex once, copyright smile almost wavering to appear, but his muscles turned out to jolt a sharp stab of pain back into the core of his chest, forcing him to stay quiet and put before blood soon followed suit. “-ow…”

 

“You’re pretty lucky you’re alive, and we’re going to have to end it on that.”

 

Robbie was wary of where he prodded to lift up the stained shirt, parts of it ripped and still stuck to where Amadeus had been shot with the long blades. He wouldn’t exactly call what porcupines have on their backs blades in any other context whatsoever, but the troglodytes Mole Man had used to attack them this time didn’t exactly have small needles hanging from their backs. They were nearly impaled on service.

 

“Well, there’s not a bunch that can kill _us._  ” Amadeus provided with a sure smile, the kind of cocky twang he saved for when he - a _ssumed he-_ had a diamond-proof argument.

 

In a good fifty percent of cases, at least in Robbie’s humble opinion, he was bullshitting to make the other person second-guess themselves. It was effective, nerve-inducing for sure. But for him? Not so much anymore.

 

“Right, i’ll bite. Dead guy and diet hulk.” He stretched Ammy’s shirt over his head with a little help and wiggling from its owner, and paused to pick around the holes and strips cut on his uniform, just to ensure it would all come off at once. “My head is too thick to do in a second time and you’ve got a scary reputation of not staying on the ground when you should.”

 

“Maybe, _just maaaaybe,_ ” Amadeus shrugs, dramatic “I might enjoy being thrown down on the ground a bit too much for that.”

 

“ _Might_  ? A   _bit?_ Just how much does your head hurt?” Robbie fought to resist the temptation of flickering his head right there and then.

 

 _It hurt quite a bit._ Amadeus laughs with his whole body, almost as if he were drunk, to the point of doubling over and nearly losing his balance, color flooding his otherwise pale-green face. The damage looked way less ugly without much on the way, but they weren’t clean blows. And he knew they weren’t, as did Robbie, whose eyes wouldn’t leave the abused scars even as he shuffled around the small white bathroom, kicking his dirt-full boots and leather away to a corner. They searched for the small things, signs of infection, remains of shadow-beings.

 

“Come on… it’s healing fast, don’t look at me like that.” Amadeus pressed his hands to his face in a poor attempt to divert the attention and block out the sight, mellowing out like sugar on the flame as the room grew hotter and hotter. He had to start undressing by himself.

 

“-Like you got peas for brains?”

 

“Like you’re stepping on a puppy wearing a tiny little paw bracer while it whines to kiss you, yeah.”

 

Roberto pulled his shirt off with a chuckle and a huff, biting onto the potty answer to that. As far as hellfire went, his body was left in a pristine condition by the end of every fight. Sweaty, perhaps, and with aching joints and nerve endings, but finding something that could effectively pierce through his uniform and harm his human self was a feat only achieved by people who knew what he was made of, tit for tat, and exactly how to repel it. The point was he  _could_  be hurt, and understood he had to be careful. His boyfriend preferred the human shield approach, judging himself nearly indestructible. “What if we’re called in again?”

 

Hand paused over the straps of his heavy gray boots, Amadeus sighed at the question, vision coming in and out of focus as his body battled to repair itself. He had calculated it, even the margin of unpredictable events. Even the small scenarios in which his vitals were took by surprise and he blacked out, left at the wills of fate. The chances that he’d have done something good and in the process taken the blow in place of his teammates that didn’t have a healing factor or particularly thick skin to save themselves from certain harm greatly dwarfed the possibility of him accidentally putting himself on a coma for naught. And if he had to end up strapped to an hospital bed- at least he did something worthy of being done. Something big, memorable. (And he wouldn’t admit it, but also selfish and childish in its earnest.)

 

The problem was how to relay that information in a way that wouldn’t make his boyfriend freak out. Communication was courage in being honest, shuffling the cards on the table and trusting they would have a clear reading. If that table was, say, completely burned and crushed out of the way, there wouldn’t be much left for him to put any cards on.

 

“Then we’ll go in again.”

 

Robbie stared, back straightened completely still.

 

“I mean- **I** ’ll go again.” he tried again, for clarity. “You don’t need to.”

 

His mismatched eyes were pressed nearly shut, the muscle on his chin contracting slightly.

 

“Pretty please?” Ammy’s voice nearly didn’t make it out.

 

“No.”

 

Robbie turned off the water before it started pouring over to the ground, and Amadeus only mumbled under his breath about the injustice of his great points going unheard as he slipped off his pants, dirt and crumbs pooling on the floor at their feet.

 

“You remember what was going to happen, don’t you?” Arm hooked around Amadeus’ leg, Robbie carefully introduced it in the tub, breaking whatever spell was holding the surface of the water together and making it overflow. He held his arms out to support the rest as the man got up and shuffled into the water. This wasn't the first and probably wouldn’t be the last time their routine ticked this way, it came naturally, like gears rustling together. “Damn thing was going to explode, on purpose, and then _you_ say-”

 

“I can wrestle it off.” Amadeus provided in cue, monotone embarrassment present in his voice, aware of how badly that particular endeavor went.

 

“And then?” Robbie wasn't trying to be patronising, just inquisitive.

 

“Then we could _all go home_ because _everybody else_ was in one piece!” He bemoaned.

 

“ _You_ weren’t.”

 

“And that matters in the long run just how, exactly?” Amadeus struggled with that frustration. the warmth of the water told him to relax, yet the rest of his instincts fired up in preparation for certain argument. “Day saved, casualties minimized, damage control currently being assessed- it’s all _fine_.”

 

“I don’t know, it matters to me. If your brains are spilling on the ground when I’m not looking. If you still got all your body parts in place by the time we’re back.” he lowered his body into the water with a heavy sigh, and his legs came to a rest right on the small slot of space between the others. Even his shoulders felt sore, tingling with the soft vapors of steam. “I’d like to think if anything were to happen, it wasn’t because of you deciding you can just walk right into a trap because technically, you could, maybe, one in a hundred chance, not get blown up.”

 

Amadeus had his stare set to the bottom of the tub, mumbling it over. He didn’t want to admit it given the circumstances, but putting together a counter-argument wasn’t ranked very high on his list of immediate needs. Number one was definitely becoming one with the water and letting it wash over the 300 different kinds of battle waste glued to his skin via sweat and blood. The rest was, well, the rest. Just as he opened his mouth to bring up that yes, he had successfully gone into the underworld and back more than once, and thus there was no need to worry that much, (as much as it was… endearing) Robbie cut up again, as his free hand massaged the back of his own stiff neck.

 

“You know... I’m not doing this for an argument. I actually think that’s the last thing we need right now. But i worry.” he knocked their knees together in jest, to lighten up. The clear, bubbly water around their body ripples in small waves, hitting the borders of the tub and coming back to them. “Because your head deserves its own satellite just by how big it gets all the time. Inflated, In the way. _I-- i did use that right, didn’t i?_ ” And Amadeus laughed, sinking a little bit more as he allowed his eyes to close up.

 

“You did.” He nearly hummed.

 

The world felt lighter with his eyes closed, just him floating in whatever warmth was around them and listening to the rumble of the voice of another. His head still stung, and he felt like a bag of beaten potatoes, but it was a temporary remedy.

 

“We still have to clean that up.”

 

Amadeus groaned at the prospect of having to do something that wasn't soaking in the warm water, but he complied. His body moved like a small floating island, taking up a considerable amount of space on the bathtub and somehow still sluggishly, gracefully coming to a stop to rest on Robbie’s chest. His hand brushed the top of the array of bottles sitting on the counter next to them, and he paused on the last one, picking up and thrusting it to his boyfriend's care. He then grumbles, exaggerating his tiredness:

 

“You do it.”

 

“And here i thought you didn't want a nanny.”

 

“You're not my _nanny_.” As the bottle pops open, Amadeus turns his head a little bit to the side, just enough so he'd be able to see. “I'm older than you. You're more like... a nurse.”  He watched as Robbie's face scrunched up in disbelief then relaxed as he sighed at the absurdity of it all, brushing Cho's hair to the side to start applying shampoo where his body wasn't reconstructing. “Like, a sexy nurse.”

 

“You’re barely a **_few_ ** months older— you're making me regret this.”

 

“-I didn’t even get to talk about your nursey attire yet!” Amadeus loudly proclaimed, feigning hurt. “There’s gotta be leather in it. And straps. _Lots_ of straps. We’re talking horny-goth Edward Fuckhands with a boob window.”

 

At a loss for words, Roberto shook his head while trying to drown out his own chuckles. At this point, even maintaining eye-contact would fuel Amadeus’ never-ending rambles like logs to the fire and had to be expressively avoided. It was all too difficult though, given that he still was massaging his head.

 

“And i’ll just be helpless in my little assless hospital gown while you feed me soup and ask me where it hurts. Ass out, at all times, ready to have my temperature taken,”

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned off in my entire life.”

 

“I beg to differ, speaking as the one currently laying on your—”

 

Before he could even deliver, Robbie threw water on his face. Amadeus screeched, attempting to impossibly duck out of the way, and sniffled as the water got into his nose, immediately retaliating by chomping down on the perpetrator’s shoulder. Just hard enough to annoy and not _harm_ , though he didn’t predict the legs locking around his lower back or the sure hands that grabbed his face, leaving it just in the right position for a kiss to be pressed upon his lips. He sighed into it, warm and wet and comfortable and right. He could lay there for years, pruning, and he wouldn’t do as much as complain about the water seeping into his bones.

 

There’s no shortage of bickering between them at any given day, and this was no exception. They would often just vary in intensity, but the small things, the absurd things, the serious things- built in small comments or nervous jokes or whispers, on frantic text messages or late night calls or greetings. Amadeus is not sure when exactly they’ve gotten there, just that they have. Like amoeba making love, breaking small particles of their own bodies and swapping, crashing, mixing. Slowly improving. Not by chance, and with their luck, surely not by fate, but built out of their stubborness in wanting the last word, they forged out a bond.

 

Robbie, in another hand, knew exactly when that shift in gears happened. They were exhausted, and positioned not too differently from how they encountered themselves in that cramped bathtub, slowly rustling together under the moonlight, shielded only by the hood of his charger, which hummed quietly in response. Amadeus had brought an honest-to-god futon and unloaded it onto the grass under the pretense that his car was, quote unquote, “too small,” and amidst their bickering over something so irrelevant he couldn’t even remember- _what was it, ants?-_ they had made out and looked at the stars. And then Cho nudged his ear with the tip of his nose, holding him close, and from a shaky “ _did you know that…_ ” he told him that any two things in this universe, who oscillate at the same interval, would start to sync up if they’re at it for a long enough amount of time. Because things are lazy, and its less effort to tick together than to tick in opposition, like the pendulums of two clocks on the wall, swinging together to spare energy. It makes their beats stronger.

 

Robbie called bullshit, Amadeus called it a fancy word that sent a warm spike down his collarbone. “Entrainment”- “or mutual phase locking.”

 

Not only clocks, but also with musical tunes, yoga, dancing routines, marching, preaching, and people. And people’s cells. That small beat of throbbing amoeba, the trickier, certain rhythm of their heartbeats that spiked up and down. And with small kisses to the side of Robbie’s neck, he confessed, courtship and foreplay were merely one of the most commonly evoked instruments for getting into sync. “And i would definitely want it to be with you.”

 

The complete bastard.

 

Maybe that was love.

 

(They did try their best to replicate it, that’s for sure.)

 

They only managed to get the soap off nearly an hour later, which was divided between small amounts of affection and working together to sleepily scrub off the dirt from each other, and getting sidetracked wondering about potential allies that would have allowed mole man to get that far ahead in a supernatural territory he didn’t have the control of. Always multitrack drifting, never stopping for a single thing.

 

By the time Robbie crawled onto bed, and Amadeus tucked himself in to avoid the cold seeping off the avengers mountain, there was only one thing, mostly obscured, biting at the edges of their consciousness as the light was turned off and goodnights were said. They don’t quite figure it out until twenty minutes later, when they flare up simultaneously and scramble for the lights and for the phone (and Robbie nearly launches himself off the edges of the mattress) to hear Gabe’s grumpy voice on the other side of the line, no doubt upset about being ignored until this late.

 

“How were the porcupines?”

 

They take turns on telling him.


End file.
